Will Pearl Mackie Leave Doctor Who After Season 10?

Did Steven Moffat just let it slip that Pearl Mackie will be leaving Doctor Who after Season 10? Ahead of this Saturday’s anticipated finale, the departing showrunner and the actress who plays the role of new companion Bill sat down to talk about the future of the long-running sci-fi series. [Warning: Contains Season 10 Episode 11 Spoilers]

Not Enough Time

To recap, Episode 11 titled World Enough and Time saw Missy (Michelle Gomez) taking over as “Doctor Who” while Bill and Nardole (Matt Lucas) as her companions. Things go awry when they land on a spaceship near a black hole and Bill was unexpectedly shot, leaving a massive hole in her stomach.

In true Doctor Who fashion, it was immediately revealed that Bill is not dead. She was taken to a lower floor where she was “fixed” with a metal heart and where she spends a number of months watching her friends through a security camera.

When the Doctor has finally explained why time moves slower on the top floor and has finally found a way to descend to the bottom floor to save Bill, months have already passed and his new companion was transformed into a Cyberman.

Next week’s finale is going to be eventful. Aside from figuring out how to save Bill, the Doctor has to face his biggest archenemy: the Master. However, this time, he has to face two regenerations of the rogue time lord as John Simm’s the Master gets unmasked as the brain behind the reemergence of the Mondasian Cyberman.

The teaser for The Doctor Falls also teases the possible regeneration of the Twelfth Doctor. As fans are very much aware, Peter Capaldi is departing the sci-fi series, but he is not expected to say goodbye until the Christmas Special later this year. The Thirteenth Doctor has not been announced as of this writing but former showrunner Russel T. Davies confirmed that an actor has already been picked.

Is Bill Potts Really Dead?

However, Mackie, who joined the series after Jenna Coleman’s exit last season, has not announced whether she will be present to welcome the next Doctor. So, whether she will survive the finale or give her life to save the Doctor will be revealed in Season 10 Episode 12.

In the meantime, at a Facebook Live Q&A on Saturday, Moffat, and Mackie talked about what the future has in store for Bill Potts.

“She’s a Cyberman from now on,” Moffat jokingly told the audience (via Radio Times). “She’s one of those ones in the trailer actually. She was just killing people. That’s the way it is sometimes.”

The Doctor, however, is not one to just leave a companion behind. He broke all the rules and found Gallifrey in order to save Clara from death (and succeeded, but now without a cost). Could he still save Bill in some way?

When asked whether filming Bill’s death scene, Mackie said: “I’m quite an emotional person, so it was pretty emotional, I mean even just reading any of it and at the read through it was quite emotional because there’s a lot of endings.”

Does this mean that Saturday’s episode The Doctor Falls will also be the end of Bill’s adventure through time and space?

Doctor Who Season 10 Episode 12 will see the Mondasian Cybermen on the rise again. In his final battle, did he made a big enough impact to make his old friend and made her have a change of heart? Will Missy turn against her previous incarnation and save the Doctor?

Written by Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay, the finale will air on July 1 on BBC.